Felony charges were dropped on Thursday against a 20-year-old University of Virginia student who says she panicked when undercover agents from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control division mistook her water purchase for beer.

According to Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress, the student, Elizabeth Daly, was walking to her car on April 11 at approximately 10:15 p.m. with a box of sparkling water, cookie dough and ice cream she had just bought from a local supermarket when the agents—six men and one woman, all in plainclothes—approached suspecting the box, a blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water, to be a 12-pack of beer. One jumped on the hood of her SUV; another pulled out a gun, Daly said, as her roommates seated inside looked on in horror.

"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," Daly wrote in an account submitted to the court. "I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified."

Daly's roommate in the front passenger seat told her to "go, go, go"—and that's what she did, apparently "grazing" two of the agents in the process.

The students called 911 as they left the parking lot, police said, and were pulled over by another agent driving a vehicle with lights and sirens, Charlottesville Commonwealth Attorney Dave Chapman told the paper.

Daly apologized when she realized who they were, Chapman said, but agents arrested Daly and charged her with two counts of assaulting a law enforcement officer and one count of eluding police—each carrying a maximum penalty of five years in prison and $2,500 in fines. She spent the night in Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.

"This has been an extremely trying experience," Daly wrote. "It is something to this day I cannot understand or believe has come to this point."

Either can Chapman.

"It wouldn't be the right thing to do to prosecute this," he said.

Nonetheless, Chapman "stood by the agents' decision to file charges, citing faith in a process that yielded an appropriate resolution."

"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation," he said.

Is it common practice to draw a weapon on an underage person suspected of purchasing alcohol?

Jumping on the car's hood and pulling a gun on potential underraged drinkers is part of their job?

Are you high?

That's what the girls claimed, yes. If that proves to be true, I'll agree that the agents over-reacted as well to the situation. But, it's still a situation that escalated because the girls were admittedly on-edge over what they saw earlier.

__________________I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?

Not quite:
ABC spokeswoman Kathleen Shaw said in the agency statement released Friday afternoon that agents were working the area that night, concentrating on underage possession enforcement. Shaw said a female agent saw "what appeared to be an underage person in possession of what appeared to be a case of beer."

"The agent identified herself as a police officer and was displaying her badge," the statement said.

"Other agents did not join the incident until the subject refused to cooperate," ABC said. "Rather than comply with the officers' requests, the subject drove off, striking two officers."

__________________I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?

that stupid girl shouldn't have made a purchase at a store that sells alcohol if she didn't want to be arrested. It's her fault for being there. No police or government official in the history of the USA has ever done anything wrong, they are all heroes.

The ABC agents should have contacted the NSA first and asked to listen to the last few phone calls the girls made. They probably would have heard them discussing going out for water with their friends, and the whole incident could have been avoided.